Ice rink should be ready in downtown Estes Park by month's end

Readying the rink -- town officials watch, as the temporary skating rink comes together on Monday. The town hopes to have the rink up and running before Thanksgiving.
(
Walt Hester
)

Get your double axel in order, your backflip in hand (or foot) and your Biellman spin in rotation -- the opening of the new, temporary ice rink in downtown Estes Park will be just in time for the twinkling holiday season, around Thanksgiving. You can twinkle your tootsies on the spiffy new ice rink -- with real ice. Think "Nutcracker on Ice" -- but not death spiral.

Estes Park town administrator Frank Lancaster told citizens gathered for the monthly Mayor's Coffee Chat Wednesday at the senior center that the ice rink will be a temporary feature at first, with staff doing a market analysis to determine its popularity. Mayor Bill Pinkham joked that the people in Fort Collins are really upset about losing their ice rink to us (Estes Park is leasing an ice rink that Fort Collins wasn't using) and they will probably come up here to visit it. He said obtaining the rink was a real coup, and it was because of Lancaster (the former Larimer County manager).

Lancaster said a Fort Collins newspaper quipped that first Estes Park steals the county manager, and then they steal the ice rink, but said the remark was good-natured, that Fort Collins was not going to put the ice rink up this year and perhaps their new city manager would come up here to glide on the ice -- which will be real and not the fake composition used at the Fairgrounds at Stanley Park during the Winter Festival last year.

The ice rink is under construction now near the Dairy Queen and Lancaster said "people are very excited about it." The opening may occur in time for the Tree Lighting Ceremony in Riverside Park on Nov.

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17, but the "amazing piece of engineering" requires quite a bit of work, and Lancaster hopes to see folks gliding about on it by Nov. 19. A free "soft opening" is planned for residents before the rink officially opens for cold cash. Skates will be available to rent for $2, with an ice time of $2, he said, all "very affordable." The recreation district will operate the facility, which will remain open winter weekend afternoons, and until 7 p.m. during the holidays.

"It's an experiment we're trying," Lancaster said. "I'm excited about having an ice rink for the first time in downtown Estes Park."

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